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COLUMBIA IN UPHEAVAL
Qrayson Kirk: tfie mnii beneath the vest: cl
A tallc ujith a Trustee: c2
The decomposition o/ authority: c3
Photographs of an institutional
earthquake: c4-S
A!I the neuis that's fit to fudge: c6
Democratizing the University: c8
■■
commcTioM
A Magazine Supplement o/ thc Columbia Daily Spectator
If Grayson Kirk were alive . ..
volume one
number tt
10 may '68
byJERRYL. AVOIÍN
When a man has bocome for so many
people liltle more than a collection oí
halftone dots on a nowspaper pag-e or
prE.diclably noncommittal quotations iti
an occasional nows column, the realiza-
tion that hc is also to some degree a
human being can be grotesqueandamus-
ing. This was one of the discoveries
made by thc student protestors who in-
vadecl Grayson Kirk's Low Library offi-
ces on that conf'i.set! \\ edntj'sday morning
in April when ít all began.
Aceording to inilial rcports fromLow,
the first order of busincss for the
demonstrators was to barricade them-
selves in and set about investigating thc
offícial business of the President—
something morc conventional students
and faculty have been trying to do for
yoars, but with nowhere near as much
success. líy W'cdt.esday night, though,
tvhen I entered the Kirk suite to report
on what was happeningthore, Ihe ĩnformal
investigalĩons had begun lo dig into less
. official areas.
As they settlcd in to spoiĸl thenight—
" as il turned oul, tho wcek—tho protes-
tors began nolicing things about the
milieu in which the President oí the
University spends his time wheti he is
not occupied with thecorporate interest-
of Sooony Mobil, UiM, or Consolidated
Edison. The books, for example. An
enlirc wall of Kirk's privale office is
linod with shelves of books, all very
impres_.ive-loo._ing, almost all
fi/itor ../'CONNIiCTION.
-I tllf Collfgf.
condilion. íMany of them were read or
leafed through that night, some quite
obviously for the fĩrst time. When,
for example, one girl wanted to read a
French paperback that was part of a
collection, she noticed that thepageshad
never been separated from one another,
The same was lound to be true ofalmost
every other momber of that serie_s,
"That's Kirk for you," commented one
student, gazing at the bookwall, "Very
impressive on thc outsíde, but
[t was theper.sonaldetailsthatrêducecl
the cologne-and-cardboard facade to an
effete crumblc for most of the stuclents
inside Low that night. The discovery of
Grayson Kirk the Man, hís lpana tooth-
paste, his Cornhusker's lotion, hisdrops
prescribed Three Times Daily to In-
crease Dryness of Mouth, his Gelusil,
Of course they had realized it intcllec-
tually all along, but now—proof! Grayson
Kirk was a real personl The discovery
was at firstpouncedonwithmalice.ma-
lice buĩlt up from all thedistant speechesi
that no one could quíte remember the
substance of aftc-r they were overexcepl
that he had said something decorous,
malice from all the "President Kirkdo-
clĩned to commenf's from Spectator,
malice from the tímeat theKingmemor-
ial when he had refused to lock arnis
and síng î'We Shall Overcome." I'er-
haps all this could be toleratecl from a
corporate'.entîty, a vested synecdoche,
But if—and until now it had only been :i
conjecture—if Grayson Kirk was indecd
like you and me and tried to pull all
that stuff, then there was perhaps reason
for anger.
It's a little bit líke the ending ol
"The Wizard of Oz," wherc Judy Gnrlnnd
finds out that the wizard is roally a litllc
old man fortiíied ,with mirrors, sound
effects, and crowd psychology. Litllo
lwiitimtedtmpagcC.il